I have to admit that I figured I'd be catering Wednesday's Canucks/Jets preview around John Tortorella's firing, and what we could expect from Interim Head Coach Mike Sullivan's 1st7th game as the bench boss.

But at least for now, that's not the case. John Tortorella is still hanging around by a thread, with the Vancouver Canucks trying to gather themselves (and their chicklets, after having their "teeth kicked in" for the second time in days).

They'll try to do so in Winnipeg, against the Winnipeg Jets and their raucous crowd, in a matchup between two teams tied for 10th in the Western Conference at 68 points. Let the Evander Kane fawning, and Ondrej Pavelec(tric) jokes begin!

John Tortorella can't help but smile these days with his team showing resiliency, and fight!

The 2013-14 season has been one of all sorts of improbably feats for the Vancouver Canucks. They've (primarily negatively) surprised us in ways we couldn't have even imagined heading into the year. Seemingly whenever we've suspected that they weren't capable of something, they've managed to outdo themselves. It has been quite the campaign.

And that trend most certainly continued on Monday night, when they scored 3 goals, with two of them coming on the power play, en route to winning their second straight game.. These days that constitutes the most improbable of outcomes around here. Forget that it was against the lowly New York Islanders, and come streaking with me already!

Mike Gillis is going through a tough time at the workplace these days. The team he has been in charge of overseeing since April 23, 2008 is in serious jeopardy of missing the playoffs for the first time during his tenure, which speaks to both how successful an organization the Vancouver Canucks have been over the past handful of seasons, and how far they've fallen this season.

The past week or so, in particular, has likely been the most difficult one of his regime. First he was forced to trade away the best goaltender in the franchise's history, for what essentially amounted to spare parts (a bottom-6 forward, and a prospect goaltender whose stock has plummeted exponentially), largely due to the handcuffing contract he had signed him to back in '09.

But maybe the most questionable, beleaguered subplot of all: the "solidarity"/crisis goatee that has crawled down from his face to his neck. As it turns out, maybe the reason for the new look has to do with the fact that he hasn't had the time to shave; writing a letter to your season ticket holders can prove to be a time-consuming activity, I'd imagine.

Things are bad in Vancouver, but at least these guys don't have the keys to the car.

There are lots of questions in Vancouver right now, as you'd expect from a situation that has gone south in a hurry. People are wondering which players will be back for the 2014-15 season. Even more rampantly, though, people are beginning to question whether we're in the final stretch of the Mike Gillis Era in Vancouver (and as an extension of that, if John Tortorella's days are numbered as well).

Most of that stems from the rumours of the ownership's meddling in the Ryan Kesler negotiations at the trade deadline. It's difficult to decipher what's true and what isn't, but the general rule in these cases is that where there's smoke, there often tends to be fire.

The team the Canucks face on Monday night in Vancouver, the New York Islanders, know a thing or two about meddling ownership and front office incompetence. Heck, Garth Snow and Charles Wang can't even complete a routine fist bump. So how are they supposed to run an NHL team properly?

Sure, it's apples to oranges, but remember: it can always be worse. We don't have to look too far for a great example of that tonight.

If there's one positive thing to take away from tonight's game between the Canucks and the Flames, it's that, for at least another night, we've been spared from referring to the team's performance as "rock-bottom" (for what would be, unofficially, the 128128121291205th time this season). It most certainly looked like we were headed towards that all too predictable outcome for a while there, but in the end the Canucks wound up prevailing by a 2-1 for the first time in the post-Roberto Luongo Era, so let's shelve that phrase for now. Just don't put it too far out of reach.

In a somewhat surprising turn of events, these two teams decided to forgo the fisticuffs from the last time they met up, settling for a game of hockey instead. While it wasn't all that entertaining, at least it wasn't a completely embarrassing sideshow.

But let's not fool ourselves: it's a testament to how far the team has plummeted - and in turn, how much we've needed to lower our expectations - that we're reaching for stuff like this as positives. This was a game in which they won and got the two points, but beyond that, if you're the Canucks you may as well burn all of the tapes and deny that this March 8th game was anything beyond a figment of everyone's imagination.